LIBRARY OUTSOURCING A NO-GO

O’side idea fails to gain enough support

Oceanside 
A proposal in Oceanside to outsource library operations to save money may be finished before it officially began, after a councilman told city administrators last week that he wasn’t interested in the idea.

The remark came from Councilman Jack Feller, who along with Mayor Jim Wood and Councilwoman Esther Sanchez would likely form a bloc to stop any proposal to privatize the city’s libraries.

“I would like the city manager to take this ... unsolicited proposal for the library off the table,” Feller said at a meeting Feb. 22. “I think, for the public library, I’m not interested in seeing a proposal come forward, and I would like to stop it in its tracks at this point.”

Oceanside runs two libraries, the Oceanside READS Center and a Bookmobile.

Feller has typically sided with Councilmen Jerome Kern and Gary Felien in budget and other controversial matters, forming a majority. The trio has in budget talks supported looking into outsourcing services in order to evaluate the potential cost savings for upcoming budget years.

Feller’s statement drew a remark from Sanchez that city staff members had been directed to look into the proposal. Feller interjected that Sanchez’s statement was untrue. City Attorney John Mullen warned the City Council it should not discuss the prospect of outsourcing the library at the Feb. 22 meeting because it was not on the agenda. Feller said he has placed on the March 14 City Council meeting agenda a discussion item on the outsourcing plan.

Felien said in an interview that he supports at least looking into outsourcing to see what savings can be realized, and that, more significantly than immediate savings, outsourcing would ultimately save the city on retiree costs.

“I know we’ve all gotten a lot of pressure,” Felien said. “From what I can tell, the library is well run. It’s used, it’s popular. ... But the math doesn’t change. If the library is taken off the table, you have to make up that difference somewhere else.”

In memos sent to the City Council in January, City Manager Peter Weiss said private company Library Services and Systems Inc., or LSSI, estimated it could save the city $300,000 to $400,000 annually. Oceanside approved a library budget of $4.38 million for the current fiscal year, which runs from July 2011 to June 2012. That amount meant shuttering the Mission Branch Library on some days, laying off three employees and not replacing two workers who retired.

“I don’t know, maybe they can save us $300,000 or $400,000, but the quality that we’ve come to know from the library even with the cuts they’ve taken already, I’m thinking that I’m just not willing to forsake that,” Feller said in an interview. “I’m still for privatization if it can save us significant money. When you’re saving money you’re going to save money by reducing the number of employees.”

He said the projected savings would be a significant amount, but he was not convinced the projections would become a reality and did not consider the outsourcing of library services to be worth looking into.

Feller said the library is already making do with less.

Interim Library Director Sherri Cosby said in January that she and the library staff were bracing for the possibility of outsourcing.